olddinosaur:Why doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

I am sure her she is grateful her country feels so kindly towards her, as to deprive her of a deadly weapon with which she might easily harm someone, like those innocent young men who were just having some carefree youthful fun.

Seriously, dude? "This is Fark" only excuses so much in the way of trolling. But just in case you are so thick as to be sincere, if India was as awash in handguns as America is, odds are the minibus driver would have had one too.

Fark_Guy_Rob:But here's the thing....you can only get so dead. Without a gun - a woman against even just one man (assuming an average woman against an average man) is pretty much screwed. The man will be physically stronger and larger than her. He can physically force her to do whatever he wants, with very little fear of being hurt.

When you've got 2 or more guys against one girl; unarmed, they can trivially kill her. She poses no threat to them.

Without guns - she is powerless and they can kill her.With guns - it increases the stakes, but it does help to level the playing field.

Even an old lady with a gun is now capable of putting a bullet through the skull of the toughest SOB on that bus. Yes, they still out number her. And yes, they can still kill her. But the difference is, she's no longer a defenseless victim. She poses a serious risk of death to, at least one, of the attackers.

In all seriousness, if I knew seven guys were going to try and gang-rape me; I'd rather take my chances with a gun than without.

But in a male-centric society like India, it's unlikely women would have easy access to weapons. They'd arm all the men since they are the ones that are traditionally supposed to defend the women. In that scenario, it would be socially unacceptable for a woman to carry a gun, and there are males who would go out of their way to put her back in her place.

The issue is not about what weapon a woman needs to defend herself, but about the social attitudes that make it necessary for her to think about how she should defend herself.

Stop telling women how not to get raped, and start teaching boys not to rape.

I joke, but seriously: misogynistic culture -> gang rapes and shiatFor all these people who want to torture and kill these rapists, there is a whole culture that is supporting rape's foreplay, like 'eve-teasing', wife beating, and slut shaming. It is all capped off with victim blaming. Reject the idea that your women are objects and you will help to keep them from being treated as such.

Vangor:Bucky Katt: At least the police took the report this time. Small consolation, though. Damn.

This and the immediate willingness of the woman to come forward were essential to the quick apprehension and bringing proper consequences to this type of horrific crime in the future.

This is probably the most sensible comment about a) why this kind of thing happens in India and b) what needs to change before it stops happening.

Rape, more than anything, is a crime that can only happen if the victim cannot or will not testify against her attacker. If she is unable to do so because her society or culture tends to disregard females, then rape can pretty much continue unchecked. India, until very very recently, has been such a country and culture. Only in the last few years have women been able to reliably bring sexual assault charges against men and reliably have police take reports and then take action against the rapists.

Giving women guns, in such a culture, would only result in women being charged with murder and probably convicted as well. Standing up for your rights is futile if you have no rights to stand up for.

aninconvenienterection:if only other passengers on the bus had the right to carry concealed firearms and have a chance to thwart this brutal attack.

/is serious

"The bus sped past her stop, police said. By that time, the woman was the only passenger.

The bus driver and his helper then took the married 29-year-old woman to an undisclosed address where five others joined the two men and raped her throughout the night, police said."

I sense a flaw in your reasoning...

Can we stop blaming other people for not being there, the victim for not being armed, or the god-damn bus company for not making rape-proof vehicles, and concentrate on the real culprits? As long as a society deems women to be second-class citizens that can be held down, sold, or brutalized without consequences, shiat like that is going to happen. Indian society needs to evolve - hopefully it won't take them too long.

Why doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

I am sure her she is grateful her country feels so kindly towards her, as to deprive her of a deadly weapon with which she might easily harm someone, like those innocent young men who were just having some carefree youthful fun.

TaterTot_HotDish:Super_pope: quickdraw: I would like to see more emphasis on teaching boys not to rape.

"Okay Timmy, don't do something awful and criminal""Alrighty!""Same for you billy""fark that I love to hurt things. Doing bad stuff is fun.""Unfortunately I can't have you put down. Off with you you little rascals."

Do you not get how this works?

By definition people who hurt other people viciously and or habitually are not LIKE us. The military had to implement a huge psych program to try and break down the normal human inhibition to hurting people because during WW2 they were estimating only 1 in four people in any combat situation actually fired their weapon at uniformed enemy soldiers on the field of farking battle. They either didn't shoot at all or fired wildly into the damn air.

Violence runs rampant in shiatty places because we combine lack of opportunity and hopelessness together with ghetoization and poor policing to create areas where humans are socialized to do violence. If you aren't from an area like that, think about the incidence rate of violence in your every day life versus being out late at bars. I have literally never seen an adult human get in a fist fight in a public place before, when they weren't drunk.

Rape has very a different meaning than a fist fight, for both the aggressor and the victim. Plenty of middle-class and rich boys and men have raped women... and for the same reason you cite: socialization. So change the socialization. That's what people mean when they say 'teach boys not to rape.'

Oh alright well THAT'S a simple and practical solution. We'll alter the way people are socialized ACROSS THE ENTIRE WORLD. Just forgetting about all those real crazies who will tell us all off for wanting to be colonialists and destroy other cultures because they have different values or whatever, "We just need to teach boys not to rape," is a really convenient way to say, "I want to complain about this while doing absolutely nothing." Its basically the same thing as offering prayers to all powerful Feminismo for all men everywhere to just be good. Why can't you just all be good?

I dunno, have we EVER successfully turned around a disadvantaged crap town or borough or city nice and non-violent before without transplanting better people into it a'la gentrification? Pretty much no. Basically the greatest triumph in re-engineering a society in my opinion is the civil rights movement, and truly accomplishing those goals is still a LONG way off, and in parts of the south it still doesn't take much for "provocation" before assholes are driving around dragging nooses behind their cars.

You're talking about a 200+ year solution to a problem that only the most developed place on earth even care about right now and just tossing it off like its nothing. We should just perfect nuclear fusion. We should just stop telomeres from being stripped when a cell divides. We should just invent telepathy. We should just create one world language.

"We should just go out with a friend or two, keep our eyes on people, and probably carry weapons until things change enough that we maybe don't have to." is not a statement like that. I am all too aware the women live with fears I don't. I don't like it, I wish there was more I could do about it. Maybe in 50 or 100 years the things I do in my own small way to make the world a better place will bear fruit.

Happy Hours:miss diminutive: So a culture that still practices infanticide for girls (at least in rural areas) has a less than progressive view towards women? Colour me surprised.

judging all Indians based on a (relatively) few of them is sort of like saying all of the US is made up of gangmembers.

And I'll bust a cap in your ass if you dare to disagree with me.

COME AT ME, BRO.

But yes, I was painting with a broad brush there. Rapes do happen all over the world, so India isn't exceptional in that regard. But the backlash and protests that started recently didn't begin just because of handful of gang rapes; women in that country feel (justifiably, I think) that they've been marginalized and disenfranchised by their system and treated as second class citizens and these sentiments has been building for some time.

Mija:About half of aborted children are female. Funny how people overlook that mass murder while claiming to be progressive towards women.

I read a short story once about how, in the future, the UN/NATO/Whatever actually encourages some societies to prefer male children to female. It solves a lot of problems whose root cause is overpopulation, but leaves women in the position of having to travel with armed guards everywhere. The actual story involves a UN inspector from North America visiting India and being horrified despite being told that there is no more poverty or disease or hunger. And then she's horribly gang raped.

It was a weird story. And I am reminded of it now for some reason.

I think it was in an anthology called "How To Save The World". I wish I still had that book. It had some interesting stories, like the scientists who invent a virus that changes people's race and unleash it at a KKK rally.....

No Such Agency:olddinosaur:Why doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

I am sure her she is grateful her country feels so kindly towards her, as to deprive her of a deadly weapon with which she might easily harm someone, like those innocent young men who were just having some carefree youthful fun.

Seriously, dude? "This is Fark" only excuses so much in the way of trolling. But just in case you are so thick as to be sincere, if India was as awash in handguns as America is, odds are the minibus driver would have had one too.

Women in this country can carry. We have just as much rape here. 1 in 3 women in the US have been raped/fondled/abused. How old do you think women should be when they start carrying guns? Tell me how the right to carry a gun would have helped my friend who got raped at 11 by her uncle. Or my SIL who got raped at 4 years old. Or how about my friend who was drugged by an acquaintance at a bar and then raped? How the hell would guns have helped any of them?

Next time you are in a room full of women realize that 1/3 of them have been physically violated.

Super_pope:quickdraw: I would like to see more emphasis on teaching boys not to rape.

"Okay Timmy, don't do something awful and criminal""Alrighty!""Same for you billy""fark that I love to hurt things. Doing bad stuff is fun.""Unfortunately I can't have you put down. Off with you you little rascals."

Do you not get how this works?

By definition people who hurt other people viciously and or habitually are not LIKE us. The military had to implement a huge psych program to try and break down the normal human inhibition to hurting people because during WW2 they were estimating only 1 in four people in any combat situation actually fired their weapon at uniformed enemy soldiers on the field of farking battle. They either didn't shoot at all or fired wildly into the damn air.

Violence runs rampant in shiatty places because we combine lack of opportunity and hopelessness together with ghetoization and poor policing to create areas where humans are socialized to do violence. If you aren't from an area like that, think about the incidence rate of violence in your every day life versus being out late at bars. I have literally never seen an adult human get in a fist fight in a public place before, when they weren't drunk.

Rape has very a different meaning than a fist fight, for both the aggressor and the victim. Plenty of middle-class and rich boys and men have raped women... and for the same reason you cite: socialization. So change the socialization. That's what people mean when they say 'teach boys not to rape.'

Super_pope:"Travel in groups with people you know for your own safety," is a much more effective and immediate one. Is that fair? Not even a little. Is it better to suffer inconvenience and unfairness than a brutal gang-assault? Yep.

Its not a matter of inconvenience you nitwit. Tell you what - why dont you practice what you preach and get back to me. Every time you want to go somewhere - work, the store, whatever - you call 4 of your buddies to come with you. Oh wait. They dont live in the same house as you? Gosh I guess you are all stuck.

This is such annoying crap. We DO teach people not to rape, but ultimately you need to be responsible for your own safety. My girlfriend is really militant about don't blame the victim, this is the bad guy's fault he shouldn't have done this! Wtf did you expect? He's the BAD GUY. If he wasn't the bad guy, he wouldn't be doing this shiat.

This woman did nothing wrong and did not deserve for this to happen any more than the last girl did. I feel bad thinking about what happened to her and do my best to put it out of my mind because of how overwhelmingly awful it is. Unfortunately if your solution is, "Turn India into a western culture with a fully developed infrastructure, none of the crushing poverty that tends to breed an overpopulation of criminally disposed people, and a far less corrupt and far more effective police force... that's not an immediate or realistic solution. "Travel in groups with people you know for your own safety," is a much more effective and immediate one. Is that fair? Not even a little. Is it better to suffer inconvenience and unfairness than a brutal gang-assault? Yep.

Pangea:quickdraw: "Teaching women to protect themselves from rape" is an idea that only makes sense to men because women already know this shiat. We already know we cant do things men can do like walk alone after dark or park our cars in an large indoor parking facility.

I've never raped anyone and I can reliably say that I never will. While I agree with the sentiment that we should live in a society that people don't hurt each other, I must challenge the claim that "women already know this shiat." That's naive, and what you're actually saying is that YOU already know that shiat.

Every single day thousands of girls transition to sexual maturity. Sheltering parents all over the country live in denial about the dangers, or avoid the subject matter because it's so tragic and uncomfortable. To avoid openly discussing techniques to minimize the likelihood of being victimized, because it *shouldn't* be necessary in a modern society is irresponsible and dangerous.

What you are saying is simply not true. Go ahead - ask any female you know how early she started to be afraid. Its not a matter of avoiding the subject matter. At all. The entire culture teaches girls to be afraid. I would like to see more emphasis on teaching boys not to rape.

But I have no illusions that you are suddenly going to understand my point. Perhaps maturity and parenthood will give you the perspective you need someday. In the meantime, since you are obviously not female or a parent, I would suggest you defer to those that are when this topis arises because you are clearly talking out of your ass. *shrug*

quickdraw:Cid_Highwind: quickdraw: The USA (with all our guns and rights) is no better than India when it comes to prosecuting rapists.

If cops straight-up ignored all rape calls and took bribes and booze from rapists, you'd start being remotely correct.

They dont ignore all rape calls - just some of them, and they do take bribes. I am in no way suggesting that we in the US are as bad off as women in India. But dont you think that we ought to be able to do better than a 3% conviction rate?

Uh...we do.

According to FBI statistics, the clearance by arrest for forcible rape is standing at about 40%. That's about three times higher than the 12% quoted on your little chart. I admit, it could be better, but still. Try to be outraged about the right numbers, okay?

cbathrobquickdraw: The Voice of Doom: olddinosaurWhy doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

A guns wouldn't have changed anything.But had the guys been circumcised as infants, their desensitized dicks rubbing against their balloon pants wouldn't have made them horny enough to think about raping her.But in the end, it's all her fault:If she hadn't tipped the bus driver less than the standard 25%, he wouldn't have abducted her; instead he would have pointed out to her that still wearing the tight spandex from cycling to the bus stop was just asking to be raped, given that the bus was full of illegal immigrants on their way home from stealing a local guy's job. And we all know how those people are.

TVOD! I was just thinking about you. Can you write a filter for the poli threads that changes the word "gun" to "penis?" It would make the brazillions of gun threads much more entertaining.

Gyrfalcon:Vangor: Bucky Katt: At least the police took the report this time. Small consolation, though. Damn.

This and the immediate willingness of the woman to come forward were essential to the quick apprehension and bringing proper consequences to this type of horrific crime in the future.

This is probably the most sensible comment about a) why this kind of thing happens in India and b) what needs to change before it stops happening.

Rape, more than anything, is a crime that can only happen if the victim cannot or will not testify against her attacker. If she is unable to do so because her society or culture tends to disregard females, then rape can pretty much continue unchecked. India, until very very recently, has been such a country and culture. Only in the last few years have women been able to reliably bring sexual assault charges against men and reliably have police take reports and then take action against the rapists.

Giving women guns, in such a culture, would only result in women being charged with murder and probably convicted as well. Standing up for your rights is futile if you have no rights to stand up for.

The USA (with all our guns and rights) is no better than India when it comes to prosecuting rapists.

From the article: "Operating in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous and poverty-stricken state, Pal's group gained notoriety in early days for beating up men who abused their wives. If they heard a husband was being violent, they would show up at his door with sticks called laathis - the same wielded by local cops when patrolling their beat - and demand he change his ways."

mraudacia:so in a country over populated by men specifically because they tend to abort women to avoid paying that dowlry thing, its dangerous to be a woman?

who knew.

India has 26 states and dowry practice was prevalent in maybe 3 states. Even in those places, since girls are limited now a days, there are cases of reverse dowry being reported. In delhi where these rape incidents occurred, dowry is not an issue at all. It's just that North Indian's have a high proportion of stupid farks.

The Voice of Doom:olddinosaurWhy doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

A guns wouldn't have changed anything.But had the guys been circumcised as infants, their desensitized dicks rubbing against their balloon pants wouldn't have made them horny enough to think about raping her.But in the end, it's all her fault:If she hadn't tipped the bus driver less than the standard 25%, he wouldn't have abducted her; instead he would have pointed out to her that still wearing the tight spandex from cycling to the bus stop was just asking to be raped, given that the bus was full of illegal immigrants on their way home from stealing a local guy's job. And we all know how those people are.

TVOD! I was just thinking about you. Can you write a filter for the poli threads that changes the word "gun" to "penis?" It would make the brazillions of gun threads much more entertaining.

Happy Hours:This is going to cause a stir. I watch a lot of international news on TV and the earlier rape/murder is all they could speak of for a few weeks.

India is interesting. It's very diverse and equality of sexes is written into their constitution.

How this country can launch satellites into orbit and develop nuclear weapons and yet also foster a culture of gang-rape is truly amazing.

I'm not going to be racist about this. I'm just going to say that the whole species of human beings sucks.

There is no culture of gangrape. This happens to be scumbags taking advantage of a situation. Let me explain. These guys raped because they thought they will get away with it. It's hard to catch criminals in India, unless you really look for them. Anybody can run and hide unless well publicized. Sure they will lose everything, but what if they don't have anything in the first place?

12349876:olddinosaur: Why doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

I am sure her she is grateful her country feels so kindly towards her, as to deprive her of a deadly weapon with which she might easily harm someone, like those innocent young men who were just having some carefree youthful fun.

I guess if she was Sylvia Browne, otherwise she'd get sucker punched or get her hands controlled before she'd get a gun. We are talking 6 against 1 in a bus here, not a burglar crashes into the living room and you grab your gun in the bedroom.

No no no, don't you watch movies?Good guys with guns can dispatch multiple enemies at one time using uncanny gymnastic prowess and dead on aim while, at worst, sustaining only a flesh wound to the upper arm. If these women only had guns they'd be just like the chicks from Underworld and Resident Evil and none of this stuff would be happening.

olddinosaurWhy doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

A guns wouldn't have changed anything.But had the guys been circumcised as infants, their desensitized dicks rubbing against their balloon pants wouldn't have made them horny enough to think about raping her.But in the end, it's all her fault:If she hadn't tipped the bus driver less than the standard 25%, he wouldn't have abducted her; instead he would have pointed out to her that still wearing the tight spandex from cycling to the bus stop was just asking to be raped, given that the bus was full of illegal immigrants on their way home from stealing a local guy's job. And we all know how those people are.

born_yesterday:No Such Agency: olddinosaur:Why doesn't someone ask her how happy she is to live in a country with strict gun laws?

I am sure her she is grateful her country feels so kindly towards her, as to deprive her of a deadly weapon with which she might easily harm someone, like those innocent young men who were just having some carefree youthful fun.

Seriously, dude? "This is Fark" only excuses so much in the way of trolling. But just in case you are so thick as to be sincere, if India was as awash in handguns as America is, odds are the minibus driver would have had one too.

Or, you know, the rapists.

I don't know man, rapists don't seem like the type of people to use guns to force people to have non-consexual sex with them.